Windswept
by Artemis1000
Summary: In one world, Rey scoffs at the idea of desert storms being anything but storms. In another world, Rey grows up believing in the vengeful goddess of Jakku who punishes sinners with storms, thunder and lightning. She may not know the Force by name, but she knows its powers.


**Windswept**

On most worlds Rey would be considered a child when she moves into the desert to make the abandoned wreck of an AT-AT her home.

Jakku is not like most worlds; it does not differ between children and adults, only between those who survive and those who don't.

Rey wants to survive.

So she works till her small, starving body can work no more and she learns to defend what little she has with teeth and claws.

All that is expected if you want to survive on Jakku. What Rey didn't expect was that she would make friends in the desert. Scavengers know no friends, only temporary allies till the need for survival inevitably drives them to rivalry, but Rey's new friends aren't like the other scavengers.

The small group of Teedos finds her late at night by her broken speeder, huddled against the machine for what little protection it can provide from winds and cold desert nights. She is crying from fear and despair and a sense of abandonment so overwhelming that it makes the sand around her shift restlessly. In her grief she is shedding the last water she has left.

In another world, the Teedos pass by and Rey learns a valuable lesson to ensure she never has to spend the night in the desert.

They don't pass. A single act of kindness with a lost child can change a great many things.

Rey is not changed by that one night spent in the company of strangers, she is little wiser for it, but she listens where before she would have only scoffed.

There are many stories told about the Teedos in the scavengers' camps; the natives of Jakku are treated with both wariness and respect, for to pick a fight with one always means to pick a fight with many. Scavengers don't like fights where the odds aren't in their favor. There are stories ranging from the comical to the gruesome, many people talking about the Teedos but rarely ever anyone talking with them. For little Rey, it is impossible to tell fact from fiction, and she has her next meal to worry about.

Fanciful and oftentimes biased as they are, the stories stay with her all the same.

There is a goddess both great and terrible watching over Jakku, and her name is R'iia. This is a story Rey had heard often enough in passing, but it was mentioned dismissively or even mockingly as something which only superstitious Teedos would believe.

Now her eyes have been opened.

The old human woman scrubbing her findings in the cleaning tent speaks with respect of X'us'R'iia, the goddess' breath which brings terrifying storms to punish the people for their sins. There is another scavenger who speaks her name with reverence, and there's an old hermit who is called strange and more Teedo than Twi'lek, but while Unkar Plutt scorns the hermit, some people in town treat her with the reverence you would give a leader… or a priestess.

Rey's hand is trembling when she shyly hands her half a ration and tells her this is all she can spare to thank the Teedo family who had helped her. The old Twi'lek's smile creases her face into myriad wrinkles. She vows that Rey's thanks will reach their recipient.

Rey is twelve when the worst storm since she left Niima Outpost hits her part of Jakku. On the fifth day, when she runs out of water, Rey prays for the first time in her life.

At 19 years old, Rey knows that there are powers greater than what science can explain.

She knows that these powers are something to be feared when they are angry.

The people in Niima Outpost know that she, too, is something to be feared when she is angry.

R'iia's breath runs through her, alive and exhilarating, and so very terrifying when she is angered.

The desert storms of Jakku can flay a man's flesh from his bones. Sand has always stirred easily when R'iia's breath quickens in Rey.

Rey learns that there used to be others like her on Jakku, others who could channel R'iia's breath and brought about justice in her name. The Empire had come and killed or stolen them all.

It is not till men in white armor come to her world and bring death that she truly understands the full extent of what she is, or what she can do. The Teedo believe that X'uus'R'iia had brought down the ships that litter Jakku's ship graveyards, and the settlers can scoff about it having been lasers not curses all they like, for Rey understands that the goddess' wrathful breath is in everything, even in the laser beams that bring ships down from the sky.

Rey doesn't know how to make the ships menacing her home fall from the sky like rain. She doesn't think she even understands the meaning of the word rain.

But Rey knows of sand whirling so violently that it flays the flesh from your bones, and of lightning storms that last for days.

She is unafraid.

Rey knows nothing of the Force, but Rey is a believer, and the goddess she prays to has taught her to punish people for their sins.


End file.
